1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a resonator and a fabrication method thereof, and more particularly to a nano-electromechanical system (NEMS) resonator which is fabricated using nanotechnology, and a fabrication method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the advancement of electronic technologies, micro-miniaturization of various portable devices has become widespread. To fabricate micro-miniature devices, it is required that the components mounted therein should also be miniaturized.
Micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) technology, which enables devices or equipment having a microstructure on a scale of less than a few micrometers to be designed, and nano-electromechanical system (NEMS) technology, which enables devices or equipment having an ultra-microstructure on a scale of less than a few nano-meters to be designed, are increasingly used to develop microminiature and ultra light devices.
NEMS is an electrodynamics system to convert an electronic signal to a dynamic motion, and vice versa.
A micro-miniature resonator fabricated using MEMS or NEMS technology may be used as a component of a filter or duplexer of a portable communication device to perform radio frequency (RF) communication.
The size of a resonator, the operating temperature, and the quality (Q) factor are used to determine the performance of a resonator. The Q factor indicates the quality of frequency selectivity, a higher Q factor enabling a higher performance to be achieved. The larger the resonator and the lower the temperature are provided, Q factor is higher.
If the resonator embodied with the micro-technology is operated at low temperature, a Q factor of more than 10,000 is acquired. However, the resonator should be operated at room temperature, and the resonator is required to be small in order to have a bandwidth of GHz. When a conventional resonator fabricated with the micro-technology is used, the bandwidth of the resonator is within a range of hundreds of MHz, and the Q factor is rarely as high.
The resonator has been developed using nanotechnology, but there are problems, in that it is difficult to handle and dispose of nano-materials and that the reproducibility is poor.